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Alternative Oscars

When you see as many movies as I do, you reserve the right to get catty about Oscar nominations. This post will collect the various actors and movies and scores and whatnot that, to me, got ignored.

Best Actor
Tim Heidecker, “The Comedy”

Rick Alverson’s update of “Five Easy Pieces” is divisive, by design. If you don’t want to watch flabby, rich thirtysomethings behave like utter assholes as they fritter away their lives, go watch fucking “Snow White and the Huntsman” or something. If you do want to watch that, then Tim Heidecker’s antihero, Swanson, is a hilarious ball of loathsomeness who makes the average Lena Dunham character look tolerable. Heidecker own work is pure dada nonsense (which is a plus, for me). When he’s shown up in other peoples’ movies, he’s had little chance to prove himself. (He’s the fiance in “Bridesmaids,” the guy with literally zero dialogue.) But he’s brilliant here.

Best Song
Rick Ross, “100 Black Coffins”

This should be obvious. Didn’t the Oscars reward Eminem and Three 6 Mafia not so long ago? Tell me this song isn’t better than the piffle written so that “Les Miserables” could get another nomination.

Best Original Score
Howard Shore and Metric, “Cosmopolis”

The movie is pretentious, poorly adapted twaddle, but the soundtrack smushes together Shore’s drawing-room avant-gardism with the bright, shiny pop of the Canadian alt-rock group. This song, “I Don’t Want to Wake Up,” appears ambiently in the film, as the late-night glowstick jam at a nightclub. That’s what makes it so good — what nightclub would play this song with its herky-jerk dynamics and vocals distorted into something that sounds like a phone call from the bottom of a deepwater oil rig?